MTS...You're Lucky! - Monday, October 15, 2007

So on Monday, I took the day off of work to go to the house and meet MTS when they got there to hook up the phone lines. On Sunday, they left me a message on my cell, reminding me that I was to meet MTS at the house...between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Wow, I don't think they could have narrowed those hours down much more...Fine. So I headed to the house in the morning and got there at about 7:50, just in case they got there before 8:00 and just took off. I got there, and nobody was there yet, MTS or other.

I decided that I was going to clean up the stuff around the yard that the contractors couldn't pick up themselves, and then hang out and watch movies on the portable dvd player I borrowed from Crystal. Well, cleaning up the yard took me until about 8:15...which meant I had 8 1/4 hours left to kill. It was still foggy by the time I had finished cleaning the yard, so I decided to take a few pictures of the sun in the fog from the front porch.

(Could you imagine if that was how yellow the house was? I actually think I would like it...)

Then I went inside and started to watch Beautiful Girls (Timothy Hutton, Matt Dillon, Michael Rappaport). Of course, since we have no plumbing installed in the house yet, I didn't really have anywhere that I could go, without getting in the car and driving to Lorette. There was a guy there that seemed like he was a jack-of-all-trades (he built the deck, and he was a clean-up crew) who was vacuuming and told me that if I had to run to the city or do some errands, that he would just take my cell number and call me if MTS showed up. I took him up on that and drove into Lorette to go to the bathroom and to pick up some munchies for my movie day. The painter was there as well, and he was getting to work on staining the shelves for the closets and the pantry, and the door for the pantry, as well as the railing and the woodwork on the stairs.

Unfortunately, when I was gone, MTS didn't show up. Which meant that I was still going to have to wait longer. I went back to watching the end of Beautiful Girls and then Don the Geothermal guy/Gravel & Fill guy showed up and wanted me to show him what it was we needed around the outside of the house. I showed him what we needed where, and he said that his guys would be out later this afternoon, and since MTS was going to be there, he said that he would knock down and level out the trench that Hydro had made when they brought power to the house. After he left at about 12:30 or so, I moved my chair and the junk that I had brought with me upstairs and outside onto the porch where I could sit in the sun and watch movies. Still no MTS.

I watched The Big Lebowski (John Goodman, Jeff Bridges, Steve Buscemi - A Cohen Brother's film) while freezing out on the porch. Norm the Painter was still inside, and I didn't want to be in his way while he was staining, AND I didn't want to get high from all the fumes that were in the house from the stain, so I just stayed outside and froze until the movie was over. Still no MTS.

I decided that I would take some pictures of the driveway/porch area before Don's guys got there will the fill/gravel, so that I would have before and after pictures. This was at about 3:30...Still no MTS.

I decided that at 3:45 I would call MTS and find out what was going on, seeing as how there was only 45 minutes left until the window I was given was over. I took a few more pictures before I called. I'm not sure what's on fire in the third and fourth pictures, but it didn't last very long.

So I called MTS. I spoke with a customer service girl, and told her that I was told to be at the house from 8:00 to 4:30...and that nobody had shown up yet. She put me on hold, for about 10 minutes, which, when you're not impressed already...seems like it's a REALLY long time. They also have the WORST "on hold" music EVER. She got back on the phone and apologized for the wait on hold, and that she was trying to get a hold of the dispatch department...but they were closed, so there was no way to get a hold of the guy who was supposed to be coming out to the house. She looked at the work order and it stated that it had been dispatched, and that there was nothing attached to it saying that they were out and nobody was home or that there were any problems. I told her that I would not be impressed if I took a day off of work and sat at the house all day for nothing, and she said that if the MTS guy didn't show up that I was to call the next morning and let them know and they would schedule a special service for us. Which I guess is nice. I got off the phone with her at about 4:15...Still no MTS.

Ryan called me at about 4:45 (still no MTS) and asked me if I was just going to come home, and if there was any point to him coming out to the house. I told him that there was no way I was leaving yet, and that I would stay until 6:00 to make sure that I didn't miss MTS, should they show up that late. As I was talking to Ryan, another call came through...you guess it. It was MTS. He said that he was about 1/2 an hour away. I told him that I was glad he called, and that I would have been pissed off if he didn't show up...he didn't sound to impressed, because he didn't laugh or anything. Oh well. At least he had something to do for 8 hours during his day. I decided to take pictures of what Norm the Painter did during the day. He got the railings stained, all of the doors and shelves stained, and all of the baseboards stained as well.

Finally, at about 5:30 or so, Murray from MTS showed up. He seemed a bit tired, and grumpy. Ryan showed up a few minutes later. About 5 minutes after Murray got there, a van pulled up, and he said, oh, there's my supper. He asked if it was okay if he went and grabbed a sandwich, and we said of course not! Ryan and I went inside, and he walked to the van. All of a sudden, all we heard was screams of "Daddy! Daddy!" and saw his kids running towards him from the van. It was SO CUTE!!! No wonder he was grumpy...he was away from his kids! He had his sandwich and then got to work, in better spirits. I should have taken some pictures of him working, but I didn't think of it until after he was gone.

While we were sitting downstairs with him, I heard footsteps upstairs, and wasn't sure who had come in. All of a sudden Kris was standing at the top of the stairs, ready to work on the shower walls. Murray from MTS left, and we went upstairs to watch Kris work...and of course, offer helpful suggestions...